Is it common in your country for companies to run ads made for American audiences without retooling them with British actors, etc? IE, do you see a lot of "American" ads?

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We often get foreign ads  normally from Europe though, and normally for cleaning products, for some reason. They generally are badly dubbed with 'proper' British voices, so you can spot them a mile off.

Is it common in your country for companies to run ads made for American audiences without retooling them with British actors, etc? IE, do you see a lot of "American" ads?

Click to expand...

Not really. The Intel Mac ad was dubbed in the UK with the wording slightly changed.

Pan-European ads are more common than transatlantic ones. Perhaps because there are different rules regarding how the advertising is done - you're not generally allowed to mention the competitor for one.

The only ones I can recall seeing in both the US and the UK are IBM ones and iPod ones. Oh yeah, and the Budweiser frogs and wassup (but much later). Always amazes me that since the Superbowl isn't primetime viewing in the UK so advertising is cheaper why the global brands don't show their highlight ads in both markets.

The UK has a tradition for very expensive, sophisiticated advertising campaigns - the prevalence of the BBC means that the British traditionally have low tolerance for advert breaks so they have to be enjoyable and endear themselves to the public. As a result, we don't 'buy in' a huge amount - although I bet the new Apple ones would go down really well here, they are very much in the British quirky/funny advertising tradition, unlike any older apple ads I can think of.

The exceptions tend to be cosmetic/beauty/frozen food type products which, as someone said, often seem to be badly dubbed from German... and Microsoft/IBM business I.T. adverts. I can't believe those Microsoft adverts have ANY effect in the British market, other than retaining brand identity.

We often get foreign ads  normally from Europe though, and normally for cleaning products, for some reason. They generally are badly dubbed with 'proper' British voices, so you can spot them a mile off.

Dr. Oetker frozen foods are the current winners on the crap dubbing scale. Don't you just love the way they cut from the actors mid-sentence when the lip synching between German and English just gets too embarrassing?

Dr. Oetker frozen foods are the current winners on the crap dubbing scale. Don't you just love the way they cut from the actors mid-sentence when the lip synching between German and English just gets too embarrassing?

Dr. Oetker - A Little Taste of France*

*Made in Germany

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I saw these for the first time yesterday - truly awful.

Also there only seems to be about three actors who provide the voiceovers for all these ads. Even without seeing the shoddy lip synching, you can tell it's a foreign ad because you've heard those slightly smug tones so often before.

The dubbed ad that stands out for me is the one for for 'Silly Bang', or something... some Eastern European cleaning product advertised with atrocious dubbing and really big hair. Still, we can also make our own very bad adverts  for example, every bloody Halifax ad where they get some of their ropey staff to sing some chart hit with the words 'humorously' changed to be about mortgages.

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